The Quad Videotape Group began as a purely social event at NAB 2008: An informal lunch of people who use, used, maintained, designed or collected Old VTR’s, Editors or Telecine equipment.

Due to several coincidences, the group was invited to help preserve for future use and access, the operating, maintenance, design and modification knowledge relating to Quad tape.

While the tapes sit on shelves getting older, so are the decks that exist to play them on, and the people who retain the know-how to get the best reproduction possible. As the people retire and pass from the scene, that knowledge goes with them.

This unexpected invitation came during comments (passionate plea, actually) of Stephen Nease, the Chief Technology Officer at the Library of Congress’ new National Audio Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA. Nease heard about the lunch during a morning business breakfast and cancelled an appointment to attend.

Steve explained about the HUGE amount of Quad video content the LoC is sitting on, the equipment that’s available for the task and need for the experience and knowledge of people like in this group to be passed on to younger people so that the knowledge of how to recover the content is not lost.

(Take “this group” to mean both those at the lunch and others who have Quad operating, maintenance and design experience.)

He noted that other archives across the country are in similar situations: Lots of reels on the shelves, and little or no ability to migrate the content for access and preservation.

There are many more hours of tape to be transferred or re-mastered that the NAVCC won’t be able to handle all the work.

That means opportunities for experienced people with well maintained Quad decks to share the task of transfers, and to bring a new generation of Quad-trained videotape specialists into being.

LoC may have funding available for travel expenses for those interested in presenting at workshops hosted at the new Culpeper facility.

James Snyder explains an oral history project that involves videotaping television engineers i the Washington, D. C. area as they relate their experiences with video recording and television production, equipment maintenence and humorous anectotes.

Bill Clark and Tim Stoffel hash out the design of a simple amplifier circuit.